The sensation of being covered in a thin layer of water all over was certainly strange. Had this been her first time, she would have needed some time to get used to the feeling. Thankfully, Rieren was experienced in this specific Enchantment. She knew how it worked, had used it effectively before. Rieren was a veteran.
Nevertheless, the feeling was certainly curious. The water cloaked nearly all of her. Both every bit of her skin and hair—even her eyeballs, which was one spot where she had to make an effort not to squirm—and her clothes as well. Changing her physical appearance was pointless if it didn’t change her clothes as well.
She didn’t waste time getting moving. Shimmering Water Cage Cloak lasted about half an hour, which was more than enough time for Rieren to get to Falstrom from her current location, but still. She didn’t want to get caught up in any surprises.
Unlike skills or techniques, Enchantments couldn’t be improved. Ever. This could be viewed from both perspectives. From an early-in-power perspective, when one hadn’t crossed through many cultivation realms and hadn’t reached many levels, this could seem overpowered. A strong Enchantment would only appear all the more powerful. Like her own.
However, for those in higher cultivation realms and later levels, an Enchantment’s lack of scaling and growth meant that it seemed weak if better options were available at later levels.
This was why Rieren normally resorted to Enchantments that were unique or were mostly utilities. Like her current one, which involved giving her a temporarily different appearance.
“I can leave now, right?” the man asked. He didn’t seem interested in her reasoning as to why she had chosen to assume his form. In fact, he was taking hesitant steps backwards, clearly having doubts that he would come out of this safely. Especially since Rieren had taken his appearance specifically. “You promised you wouldn’t kill me.”
Rieren didn’t recall promising any such thing, but she supposed she had said he would survive. “You can return to your post, but not yet.”
He swallowed. “Why not?”
“Because I am not done yet.”
The fear on the soldier’s face didn’t have a lot of space for curiosity, but there was a glimmer of a question in his eyes. Rieren didn’t bother explaining. Instead, she went into the System Shop and bought some ropes. Then she began tying up the soldier.
“What are you doing?” he asked, voice rising in panic.
“Shh,” Rieren warned with a hard look. “This is simply a precaution. We are not too far from your patrols. Once they see that you are missing, they will come looking and find you easily. All this does is that you will not be able to go run to them immediately and begin babbling.”
“I won’t. Promise! I won’t tell a soul. I—”
“Enough, please. What you will not be doing is changing my mind. Unless you start panicking too much and then I will simply kill you outright.”
That made the soldier shut up and stay still. Rieren finished tying him up, enjoying that she still knew her way around knots and ties. With that done, she headed off, reacclimatizing herself to the fact that the water wasn’t about to slip off if she moved too much. Hopefully, the soldier would understand and not cause a fuss.
The first thing Rieren did was head back to his post. Two curious men were waiting for her.
“How long does it take you to piss?” one of them asked with a lopsided grin.
Rieren only grinned. What Shimmering Water Cage Cloak didn’t do was change her voice so that she sounded more like the person she was impersonating. That was next to impossible. While Rieren could modulate her own voice to make it sound closer to the soldier’s, those who knew him would catch the difference easily. Unless she lied convincingly.
“Well, I was waiting to relieve you anyway,” the other one said. “Off with you.”
Rieren nodded, trying to look grateful, and headed off. One nice thing was that the bending of light achieved by the Enchantment also changed her apparent height. She hadn’t been as tall as her captive, but now, thanks to the Enchantment, it appeared as though she was.
Not wasting any more time, Rieren quickly headed over to where she could finally relax, had she been a real soldier of the Shatterlands. It was freeing to travel through the camp without worry of being suspected by anyone. Soldiers passed her, minding their own business and sticking to their patrols. A few greeted her, and she made sure to raise her torch a little higher at them.
Outside the city limits, there weren’t any actual barracks. Just tent groups that served as temporary residences for the soldiers here. Rieren bypassed them all, once her coast was clear, then headed for the city gates.
“What is your business in the city?” the gate guard asked. He didn’t sound particularly suspicious or diligent. Just someone going through boring formalities.
Rieren cleared her throat, massaging her neck. “Sorry, got a little cough all of a sudden.” She cleared her throat again to emphasize. It was a little odd to slip into a different dialect.
“Is coughing your business in the city?”
He asked with such a lack of emotion, Rieren could almost have been fooled into thinking his inquiry was genuine. “No. I need to… uh, see someone. Not for long, mind. Just… you know.”
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This time, there was the tiniest spark of life behind the gate-guard’s fish-belly eyes. “Oh, I see. Well, I’m still supposed to ask for a permission slip from the commander.”
“Come on, friend. Cut me some slack.” She leaned forward and lowered her voice. “You know what, how about we do a little deal?”
“What kind of deal?”
“You know, favour for favour. You let me in without telling anyone and I’ll get you something nice as compensation. You know how it is, friend. Got to see… her.”
The guard actually snorted at that, though she wasn’t sure if his mirth was mocking her or not. “Sure, whatever. What you got to give in return?”
“I got a little stash of spirit crystals I can get you.”
That made him really perk up. “How in the world did you get a hold of spirit crystals?” Then he lowered his voice, looking around furtively to make sure they were alone. “And how many are we talking about?”
Rieren grinned, recalling her conversation with Serace, promising him spirit crystals back at the Sect in return for his help. “I got ten.”
The guard whistled. “I want at least half.”
“Too many, friend. I can part with two.”
The guard made a dismissive noise. “Well, you can forget about getting through these gates.”
“Two crystals. Tonight. You let me through this here gate some more and…” Rieren made a walking motion with her fingers. “Two crystals. Every night you let me through.”
The guard didn’t know whether to accept the offer immediately or try arguing for more.
“Hurry on, friend. My lady friend is waiting.”
“Argh, fine, fine.”
He finally unlocked and opened the gate. Rieren was able to finally enter. It didn’t take long to use some of her remaining Credits to get some spirit crystals from the System Shop. They were tiny purple gems with a faint shimmer. She nodded in gratitude at the guard, slipping on a little grin as she pushed two crystals at him, then quickly headed into the city of Falstrom.
The city was less crowded now that the sun had gone down. Rieren could finally put out her torch and place it inside her storage ring. She didn’t want to be lugging it around. Though, it would be useful later.
Despite everyone heading home, there were still lively spots. Certain taverns were lit brightly and had a bubble of noise coming from within. A few people were burdened with bags of their recent purchases from shops they had visited. Occasionally, a waywagon rumbled by. Falstrom might be slower and less lively after sundown, but it was by no means dead.
Rieren didn’t pay much attention to what was going on elsewhere. She quickly made her way to the waywagon station where she, Merolk, and Silomene had taken one to their manor on the mountainside. She had promised to meet Batcat there.
No one paid her any mind. A nice boon about cities of sufficient size was that everyone was too busy minding their own business to bother others. Even better, cities weren’t tight-knit communities like the little village Rieren had come from tended to be. There was far less chance of running into someone she knew. As such, it wasn’t surprising that no one accosted her.
While waiting at the corner of the street next to the waywagon station, her thoughts naturally strayed to her companions. She wondered how they were doing. Merolk wouldn’t have let Silomene come to any harm. That was for certain, seeing how he had doggedly prevented her from doing anything too dangerous in all their time together.
For all that they had parted under strange circumstances, thanks to that accursed Avatar, Rieren didn’t bear Merolk any ill will. She had severe doubts that he could be the one to have called the Masked Avatar, though it wouldn’t surprise her if he knew that the Avatars were working among them.
What she really needed was some way to obtain news of what was going on. Falstrom seemed safe, but that said little about the condition of the rest of the Shatterlands.
Something nudged her leg. Rieren looked down, unsurprised to see that Batcat had appeared.
“Took you long enough, cat,” she said.
It meowed back at her, sounding a tiny bit affronted.
“Yes, of course, I am happy to see you as well.”
She picked up the winged kitten and placed it atop her head. Once it was in position, she headed off towards the centre of Falstrom.
Her target was a temple. There were a few different routes to the lowest levels of Falstrom where the Enlightenment Locale was located. While generally the passages to the Locale were open for anyone to travel through, she had a certain suspicion that they were all being watched.
A lowly soldier from the outer city patrols going into the Enlightenment Locale would be overly suspicious. As such, Rieren hadn’t minded waiting for Batcat to show up and then amble on towards the temple. By the time she had wended her way through the streets, keeping to the shadows and avoiding passers-by as much as possible, she was back to her regular self.
Of course, this wasn’t to suggest that Rieren’s true form was less recognizable than the soldier. The point was that there wasn’t much she could do about the watchers.
When she arrived at the temple, it appeared fully deserted. There were no worshippers flitting from altar to altar, no monks extolling the virtues of the gods, not even any incense burning anywhere. She wondered if there was a general understanding that the gods were the ones behind all the madness beyond the city’s walls.
But that was the thing. If there were watchers here, hidden observers taking note of all who passed through, Rieren had no way of finding them. Not without spending too much time on it. She could sense no Essence being channelled, nor could she see any when she poured some Essence into her eyes.
The passage leading underground was behind one of the altars. Rieren tried her best not to stare, but it proved difficult.
Many of the gods were arrayed in all their splendour. Most were in the form of artfully carved statues resting upon plinths, but a few had more esoteric representations, such as a painting for Destrinn and a what looked like an overly gaudy mummy for Rasashen.
The strangest one was for her, though.
Rieren shouldn’t have been surprised there was a small altar for Arianaele as well. After all, she had reached the Divine Realm in the past timeline, and that had led her to being anointed as a god by some people. She had even seen proof of that in this timeline. That mysterious ruin that had appeared on Lionshard’s slopes had held a statue of her too.
The one here was far less grand. No more than a little statuette, one Rieren could hide in her robes if she so desired. It depicted her in the same stance she normally was when using Wrath of the Swordwing.
Rieren smiled, recalling how empowered she felt whenever she used Wrath of the Swordwing. The Bladed Goddess Arianaele. She supposed the epithet was fitting.
There was little time to gawk around at statues, however. These were still no more than lifeless hunks of stone placed in a little courtyard where people could come to provide offerings and prayers without being unduly influenced. It was no surprise that Rieren found no Essence tampering when she infused her eyes.
The entrance to the downwards sloping passage was just behind the courtyard, hidden under a set of loose flagstones. Rieren was rather glad she remembered the specific spot. Prying them out revealed the trapdoor underneath, which then granted her access to the sloping tunnel.
“Ready, cat?” Rieren asked.
Batcat purred sleepily atop her head.
Patting the fluffy kitten atop her head and pulling out the torch from her inventory, Rieren headed down.